


Rat

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Series: Holding [32]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Goalie Magic, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Realism, look i don't even know how to tag this one okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: The day after Brad miraculously recovers from his flu they have a game against the Flyers. Patrice is immediately convinced that carrying around the little rat plushie actually is good luck, because Brad is all but untouchable - he scores two shorthanded goals and gets two assists, all without drawing negative attention to himself and so receiving no penalties. They win 5-2 and Patrice decides to keep the little toy after all.





	Rat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blindbatalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/gifts).

> Alex this was inspired by your tags on that Tumblr post... I got hit with inspiration (even if they're not followed exactly to a T, this is like 90% of your tags) and banged this out in like two hours. However I also remember that the last time I gifted you a fic I did literally everything exactly wrong, and you've also said stuff about wanting to get out of this fandom/pairing, so if you don't like this just say the word and I'll remove it immediately.

“But _ why?_” Patrice asks, staring at it - then at Pasta - then back at the object in his hand.

“Because maybe it’ll help you be less sad until your _ boyfriend _ gets back from his flu!” Pasta grins.

Patrice rolls his eyes. He’s getting really sick of people saying Brad’s his boyfriend. They are not dating. Brad is not interested in him. They’re best friends and lineys. That’s it.

“Pasta, it would be really nice if people stop calling him that.” Patrice sticks the small rat plushie in the pocket of his windbreaker. “You could be the first one to break that trend on the team.”

“Why? He doesn’t care,” Pasta protests, also getting ready to go home from practice now.

“Because _ I _ care. I don’t like it, I don’t like hearing it, I don’t like that it came from a mean hurtful place from other teams’ fans. I wish it would go away.”

“But he doesn’t care.”

Patrice sighs and gives up. “Have a good afternoon, Pasta.”

Driving home, Patrice sits the plushie on his dashboard and looks at it every time he’s stopped at a light. It’s a very cute stuffed toy, he decides, and hockey’s already full of the weirdest superstitions imaginable. Maybe it’ll be good luck… he’ll have to keep Wilson from getting after it, though. It also now occurs to him that Pasta probably thought Patrice wanted them to stop saying Brad’s his boyfriend instead of stop saying that Brad’s a rat. He minds the second one a lot more.

Patrice drops his keys and his wallet into his Red Sox cap and tosses it onto the counter, then sets the rat plushie on his table and microwaves some penne for himself. While he waits, he goes for his phone.

It rings once. “Hey, Bergs.” A loud inward snort. “How was practice?”

“Normal. How’re you feeling, Marchy?”

“Still shitty… whoever invented the flu needs to be run over by a Zamboni.”

Patrice chuckles. “Drink lots of orange juice.”

“I am.” Sniff. “I wanna say you should come over and make me soup, but I know your immune system’s a little bitch and plus you can’t cook anyway.”

“What if I wore one of those hospital masks and came over just to hang out? I can bring store-bought soup.”

“Dude I have so much soup already. I don’t want you to get sick.”

“It’s okay, if you need me to help-”

“Christ, Bergy, it’s fine,” Brad groans, but Patrice knows he actually loves the fussing and attention. “I gotta stay quarantined and all that shit.”

“If you say so.”

They talk about stupid shit for awhile like they always do, which means a lot of Patrice getting in bites of food while Brad rambles despite his raspy sore throat. Patrice eyes the rat plushie from time to time, imagining that that’s Brad talking to him instead of his best friend lying around being sick across town.

“Alright, I’m gonna go have a nap, man.”

“Good, you need rest. If you need anything call, I mean it.”

“Yup, sure,” Brad agrees even though they both know he won’t.

* * *

Patrice feels weird heading for practice this morning - not only is he carrying a tiny stuffed animal in his pocket, but he also held it in his hand while he slept last night. Which is stupid. He’s in his mid-thirties and shouldn’t be cuddling stuffed animals in his sleep anymore. Whatever. It’s not like the guys will know just by looking at him.

And then there’s this: “Morning, Berg!”

Brad grabs him from out of nowhere into a crushing hug the second he gets into the locker room and Patrice almost knocks them both over from startling so hard.

“Marchy - what the hell are you doing here?! I know you’re still sick!”

“I got better,” Brad grins.

“Overnight?” Patrice demands. He doesn’t know how he should be taking this, because last night Brad sounded absolutely terrible. “Go home and get back in bed!”

“Why? I feel fine,” Brad insists, holding his arms out to his sides.

Patrice stares at him, looking for any of the usual tells that he’s lying, but none of them appear. “You really just woke up this morning and were completely better.”

“Yeah, I’m back to a hundred percent. The medics all checked me out, they said I’m good to go.”

There’s nothing Patrice can think of to argue with that. “Well. Um. Okay then.”

They gear up for practice. Patrice gets the feeling that Tuukka and Jaro are watching both of them.

* * *

The day after Brad miraculously recovers from his flu they have a game against the Flyers. Patrice is immediately convinced that carrying around the little rat plushie actually _ is _ good luck, because Brad is all but untouchable - he scores two shorthanded goals and gets two assists, all without drawing negative attention to himself and so receiving no penalties. They win 5-2 and Patrice decides to keep the little toy after all.

In the locker room after the game Patrice can hear Brad talking to the reporters: “Yeah, we had a pretty good game tonight, you know, Tuuks was good, Line 1-A was good. Uh, Bergy was great, but he’s always great, so, you know, no surprises there. Hopefully, uh, we can keep some of this going tomorrow when we’re playing the Habs, too.”

Patrice reaches into the only clean pocket in his gear bag and gives the rat plushie a small, affectionate squeeze. He watches Brad smile after he does it and wishes it was Brad he could affectionately squeeze instead.

* * *

“Hey Bergy, did you keep the rat?” Pasta asks, sitting next to him on the plane even though that’s not actually his spot.

“Huh? Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. Why did you give it to me?”

“Because Tuuks told me to in that way he does where if you don’t do what he says it means you get stabbed and nobody ever finds your body.”

Patrice snorts. “I’m too old for stuffed animals, Pasta. The next time Tuuks gives you one, maybe give it to Torey for his daughter, she’ll probably get a lot more use out of it than me.”

Which in no way means he doesn’t still have the plushie. In two months the thing hasn’t stopped being lucky - even on nights when they lose, Brad’s been top of his game in a way Patrice has never seen before. He could be well on the way to topping his hundred points from last season and if the price for that is Patrice hoping and praying that none of the guys finds a small stuffed toy in his gear bag, he’ll gladly take that risk.

Pasta gets up and leaves, conspicuously going over to talk with Jaro after that. Patrice doesn’t get it. The goalie tandem has been watching him in a pretty menacing way for weeks now, but otherwise they act perfectly normal.

* * *

Three months after receiving the plushie, Patrice realizes how fucking ridiculous he’s been. Because he can’t find it one night and so tears his house apart searching, eventually finding it in the pocket of a pair of pants that needs to be put through the wash. And it hits him. He’s a grown man who cuddles a tiny stuffed rat while he sleeps in place of the best friend he’d rather be snuggled up to, a best friend who he knows he can’t have. He believes in stupid things like luck to win hockey games now instead of the skill of his teammates.

Disgusted with himself, Patrice throws the plushie into the bucket by his dryer that he uses to empty the lint trap and stomps his feet the entire walk back upstairs. He sleeps terribly that night.

* * *

In the locker room before morning skate: “Dude, I feel like such shit.”

Patrice assumes Brad’s talking to him - it’s always him that Brad’s talking to - and turns. Brad looks _ awful. _ He’s the color of printer paper, he’s trembling, and suddenly he’s also coughing so hard Patrice worries that one of his lungs will pop out and fall on the floor.

“Why did you come in today like this?” he demands, dragging Brad upright so they can go find the medical trainers. “You should’ve called out!”

“Thought it’d go away when the coffee kicked in…”

Patrice hauls the idiot off to get looked at, hoping that whatever this is doesn’t turn out to be contagious. Tuukka’s glowering at him like it’s his fault Brad got sick.

* * *

Krej calls him that night to tell him Brad got sick enough to be sent to the hospital. As soon as they hang up Patrice starts crying.

Normally, he’s not impulsive. But right now he feels lonely and desperate and guilty, so he’ll try anything. He goes back down to his basement and slowly reaches into the lint bucket for the rat plushie - some gray fuzz sticks to it, so he picks that off. Sitting on his couch after, he feels like an idiot holding it and whispering “please be okay” like somehow Brad can hear him.

* * *

His phone rings and it wakes him up. He reaches for it with the hand not taken up by the rat plushie.

“Hello.”

“Hey, Bergy.”

“Marchy? What’s going on, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m better this morning. Last night I thought I was gonna fucking die, man.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I thought that, too,” Patrice admits. “So do you know what happened?”

“No idea. The doctors can’t figure it out, either. It’s fucking weird, bro.”

“Yeah, that is weird…” Except this happened before. Brad got instantly better from the flu when Patrice cuddled the rat plushie. Now he’s better again after the same thing. “Are they discharging you soon?”

“I think so.”

“Good, we need to talk about something really weird.”

“Actually I gotta talk to you about something, too. That’s why I called.”

“Okay.”

“But we can do it later, since you wanna do that.”

Patrice nods and then yawns. “Yeah. Okay. Call me again when you’re on the way home, I can pick you up if you want.”

“Cool.”

He sleeps for a couple more hours until Brad calls again, then gets dressed and drives to the hospital… with the plushie in the front pocket of his sweatshirt. He’s not taking chances with his best friend’s health like that again. It occurs to him how stupid that would probably sound if he ever said it out loud, but that’s not important. He’s going to stick with what works.

“Hey, Bergs.” Brad hugs him and he hugs back even tighter. “Get me the hell outta here.”

“So you really don’t know what happened?”

“Nope. I woke up yesterday morning and felt like I was fucking dying, man.”

“I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Yeah, me too.”

They go back to Patrice’s house and make coffee. Looking at Brad, if Patrice told someone that last night he’d been on death’s door, they wouldn’t believe him. That by itself is so insane that he can’t even think about it.

“So like… we gotta talk about some shit,” Brad starts, looking at the floor. “Actually _ I _ gotta talk about some shit… I wanted to call you yesterday but I left my phone in my pants and didn’t get it back until like eleven at night, so I figured you were asleep and waited until morning. But I did really think. I did think I was dying and shit. It felt like it. Uh, it kinda made me also figure out that I’m literally the biggest dumbass who ever lived.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the kind of shit people realize when they’re dying, right? Anyway, I realized that too. I shoulda… so remember in June, when we were both drunk on my couch and everything hurt?”

“Yeah, don’t remind me of that.” There’s still a stain on Brad’s rug from Patrice throwing up in the aftermath of game seven. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well since I was drunk it seemed like a good idea to… I was gonna tell you that night, which woulda been like, the worst fucking timing. But then you puked and watching you puke made me puke and then we both passed the fuck out.”

“I already said don’t remind me, Marchy. I don’t want to think about that night ever ever _ ever _ again.”

“Yeah I know, I really don’t either, but…”

Patrice doesn’t get this. Normally Brad just blurts shit out before his brain can catch up to his mouth - there’s never been all this awkward stumbling before.

“Bradley, what’s going on?”

Brad takes a breath.

“Bergs you know how the team sometimes says I’m your boyfriend as a joke?”

“Yes…” Patrice has no fucking idea where this is going, but he hopes it’s not that Brad figured out that he’s had a crush on him for years. Crushes are for schoolboys.

“So like… what if I actually was, though?”

Patrice needs way too much time to think of an answer to that. “Are you asking me out?”

“No. Yes. I don’t fucking know.”

At least Brad’s honest, he decides. “Okay, so do you _ want _ to be asking me out?”

“A little.”

Patrice nods. “More than a little.”

“Yeah. More than a little. But you never seemed interested. If you want I can just shut the fuck up and go home and then we never talk about this ever again.”

“Bradley Kevin.”

“What?”

“I literally yell that I love you during goal cellys.”

“Yeah but you don’t mean it like that.”

“But what if I _ do _ mean it like that?” Patrice huffs. “Can you please just. Not be thick right now? I’m still really stressed out about you almost dying last night.”

Brad grins. “Okay. Then yeah, I’m totally asking you out, man.”

Patrice rubs his face with both hands. “Thank god… but if you’re going to be my boyfriend you’re not allowed to get sick ever again. I mean it, this was horrible.”

“Yeah, no shit it was horrible! They kept sticking me with needles for blood samples and IVs and shit!”

“Okay. As long as we agree.”

“So this is really gonna be a thing? You’re not just fucking with me?”

“When have I ever just fucked with you, Marchy?”

“…okay, point.”

“Good. Yes, this is really ‘a thing.’ I’m going to also have a second to feel really stupid for not being able to resolve this eight years quicker.”

“Eight years?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. It’s been like, ten for me.”

“What?”

Brad grins, but he’s not embarrassed. “So like. I had a thing for you since like, two days after we met.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So we’re both stupid.”

“We’re both stupid,” Brad agrees.

* * *

On the plane to San Jose: “You don’t have to keep it anymore.”

Patrice startles a little as Jaro drops into the seat next to him. “What?”

“The little toy rat… you don’t have to keep it anymore. It doesn’t have an affect now you figured out your shit.”

“Can you explain literally everything about that sentence? Also how did you know about the rat?”

“Because I helped Tuuks with it… it’s to help you figure out your shit. Now your shit’s figured out. It does nothing anymore.”

“You cursed a toy and gave it to me? Why would you do that? Brad almost _ died!_”

“He wouldn’t die from this, only get really sick. We put in a barrier against that. Anyway, it worked and he’s fine now. So, mission accomplished.”

Jaro slaps Patrice’s shoulder and then leaves. Patrice doesn’t know if he hates or loves the goalie tandem for doing this to him. Probably a little of both.

Now Brad sits by him and kisses the side of his face. “You look pissed.”

Patrice shrugs, then smiles and turns to kiss him back. “It’s nothing. Just the goalies messing with people.”

“I thought they stopped doing that after Z broke his jaw.”

“Yeah, I thought so, too. It doesn’t really matter, everything worked out this time.”

“Cool.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware that this fic is dumb. I feel kind of dumb for writing it and it's far from my best. That being said, please comment.


End file.
